FRIDAY PHILOSOPHY

Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton settle their differences - 1804.

At this point in the electoral process nothing is going to change anyone's mind either way, because with very few exceptions we human beings are governed entirely by our passions and prejudices –– never by Reason.

“REASON is the but the SLAVE of PASSION” and ever more shall be so.

I have watched our once beautiful country throw away most-if-not-all of her advantages one by one in the past fifty-five years, primarily because the Public Mind has been conditioned by Master Manipulators in the Education, Entertainment, News and Information Industries –– and what may be left of Book Publishing ––– to adopt suicidal policies in the names of Fairness, Decency and Enlightened Thinking. 

We've been had, and most of us don't begin to realize it. 

The intellectual cancer emanating from The Frankfurt School through places like Berkeley, the University of Chicago and The Ivy League has metastasized to such an extent that The USA, as we have known and loved it, is now terminal –– beyond hope.

The "Pen," is, indeed, "mightier than the Sword."

The spirit of the revolution Thomas Paine’s little pamphlet helped spark has been destroyed by the likes of Abraham Lincoln, Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, Herbert Marcuse and Saul Alinsky.

Lincoln subverted the Constitution and made himself our first dictator. Later on the Industrial Revolution spawned the Labor Movement which led inevitably to The Communist Manifesto. Because of the Marxists and their filthy ilk ––- perverted mischief makers all ––  we don't know who we are anymore.

These moronic games of GOTCHA! began –– as far as I can remember –– with the unabashed reveling indulged in by the Liberal Media Establishment over Dan Quayle's POTATOE.

It's been off to the races ever since.

It amuses the hell out of me to see leftists get all huffy puffy and bent out of shape when the right wing gives them a taste of their own medicine.

Only the LEFT believe in ONE-WAY RUDENESS.

"We" on the right –– or I should say IN the right ;-) –– have been awfully slow to catch on, but now that we've finally decided that "what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander," you on the left are crying "FOUL!" in stentorian tones.

If all this display of mutual disingenuousness weren't so bad for the country, I'd just laugh myself silly.

If you don't like it, please try to remember who started it. It might help assuage your ire ––- a bit.

Well, Ms. Shaw Kenawe, with whom I rarely agree, but like a good deal on a personal level, even so, responded thusly:

’I don't understand what "it" you say I don't like, since my only remarks here have nothing to do with disliking.

Remember who started "it?"

We'd have to go all the way back to the Adams-Jefferson feud. That's when all this nastiness started.

Mr. Washington wanted no part of political parties. But humans are tribal, and here we are.’

Agreed, Ms. Shaw, but I for one wish we could stop ourselves from indulging in all these fake histrionics over petty nonsense –– like "potatoe," "fifty-seven states," "I did not have sex with that woman –– Ms. Lewinsky," and "the 47%," etc.

Everyone with a shred of intelligence knows these are spurious concerns that have no bearing on the economy, the shrinking value of the dollar, job availability, international trade imbalances, increasing Central Control of essentially Private Matters, increasing disregard for LIFE as the thing we should hold most sacred, Waste, Fraud, Abuse of Power on every conceivable level. Raising levels of LITERACY, FACTUAL KNOWLEDGE, comprehensive study of DISPARATE POINTS OF VIEW, encouraging appreciation of Art, Architecture, Music, Literature from a long range historical perspective, etc. etc. etc.

It's my view we need to drive "AGENDAS" of ALL kinds –– both liberal AND conservative –– from the field of Education at all levels.

If we simply showed students the world as it is and has been sans "interpretation" with a political, philosophical or religious "slant," society would benefit enormously.

Right now in my never humble opinion we're all much too busy trying to tell each other how we ought to think, and how we should be leading our lives.

The policy has generated a great deal of hatred and misunderstanding on all sides. We're all at each other's throats as much –– or more –– than ever.

Surely we should be able to appreciate each other's good points without feeling we must CAPITULATE to someone else's point of view in order to secure their good will and possible friendship.

As for Jefferson and Adams' famous feud –– and all that followed in its wake –– you're right. Proving once again that "The more things change, the more they remain the same."

I suspect, however, that such carryings on in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries were more THEATRICAL than PERSONAL –– rather like the stories we hear of lawyers who've been beating each other to a bloody pulp in the courtroom going out to lunch together during the trial, or hoisting a few together at the local pub in the evening, or playing friendly rounds of golf together at the same country club, etc.

There's something deadlier –– really chilling –– about what's going on today. Because of the introduction of Marxian notions of "Class Warfare" as a legitimate moral concern and the advent of Unions acting as gangsters engaged in Thuggery, Extortion –– and sometimes even Murder –– the scene is no longer intellectual and theatrical. Instead it has become brutal and truly hateful.

And oh yes, such events as the infamous Burr-Hamilton duel certainly prove that brutality, though of a more decorous, stylized sort, was very much alive during the seemingly elegant lifestyle enjoyed by our Founders.

The veneer of Civilization has always been wafer thin and fragile as a flower, but today –– thanks to advancing "Proletarianism" for want of a better term –– it appears to be wearing away altogether.

I hate to see us lapsing into neo-barbarism touted as "egalitarianism."

~ FreeThinke